first draft flabbiness

This month I dived into the PTA manuscript as planned, one last dash through the material before its sent off to UT Press for copy-editing. I also have to provide screen captures for images, which will be very time-consuming as well. Honestly, its proving to be a lot more slow-going than I thought.

I really haven't spent much time with the manuscript since last summer and it shows. I've only gotten through the chapter on Hard Eight and the introduction to the Magnolia chapter--I'd hoped to be halfway through the entire manuscript by now. The organization, research and general arguments are still holding up, but the writing itself is a mess.

Its not just a matter of proofreading, as I thought, but of making significant sentence-level revisions. Having been away from the material for over a year while it went through the acquisitions process at UT, I'd not realized how much "first draft flabbiness" existed in it. There's a lot of repetition and wordiness throughout. I've cut nearly 3,000 words in the first two days doing nothing but trimming and rewording sentences.

Its good for the manuscript, but not so much for my work plan. I still have to write a new introduction for the book when I'm done revising the rest, as well as grab the images. But I have less than a month to do all of it.

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BTW, here's the TOC at the moment:

Introduction /

Postmodern Media Culture

and the Films of Paul Thomas Anderson

Chapter 1

I Remembered Your Face /

Indie Cinema, Neo-Noir and

Narrative Ambiguity in Hard Eight (1996)

Chapter 2           

I Dreamed I was in a Hollywood Movie /

Stars, Hyperreal Sounds of the`70s

and Cinephiliac Pastiche in Boogie Nights (1997)

Chapter 3

If That Was In a Movie, I Wouldn’t Believe It /

Melodramatic Ambivalence, Hypermasculinity, and

the Autobiographical Impulse in Magnolia (1999)

            

Chapter 4

The Art-House Adam Sandler Movie /

“Post”-Patriarchy, Commodity Culture

and the Ethereal Ephemera of Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

Chapter 5

I Have a Competition in Me /

Political Allegory, Artistic Collaboration and

Narratives of Perfection in There Will Be Blood (2007)

 

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